Gamut
by markmark261
Summary: A short collection of short stories, because every character deserves a story.
1. Abra Kadabra

_**First**_

He considered himself the world's greatest magician, but he himself didn't believe in magic. It was all gadgets and gizmos, smoke and mirrors, flimflam and misdirection.

Sadly, despite being the colossus of conjurors, he also had a stunningly stupid name. Maybe that's why he'd hidden his identity all of these years, turned to the dark side, earning hate from all those around him. Maybe that was why he was now known only as the Masked Magician, revealing the secrets of magic all across the world's TV screens.

Returning to his dressing room, he sat down, looked in the mirror and pulled off his black-and-white mask, only to recoil in horror as he saw a different face looking back at him. It was that of a man with shiny black hair, albeit receding, and a long thin moustache. It was a face he recognized instantly.

He pulled his mask back on, hoping his distorted reflection would do likewise, but the reflection just looked at him and smiled.

"Ah, Masked Magician," said the man in the mirror, "I'm sure you recognize me, for I am..." the man paused for melodramatic effect, "Abra Kadabra!" And as he said his name, there was a large bang and a puff of scarlet smoke and, when it had cleared, Abra Kadabra had seemingly stepped out of the mirror and was now standing in front of him, dressed in his more-usual garb of a white suit and cloak.

"Nice trick," said the Masked Magician, as he looked around the room for a hidden camera, "though a bit overly theatrical."

Abra Kadabra raised an eyebrow. "Do not be fooled by my style and flair, young man, I am neither your standard magician nor your standard villain," he said, his fingers twirling the end of his moustache menacingly.

"Why are you here? Did the production crew put you up to this?"

The villain's nostrils flared. "I am the great Abra Kadabra, you should fear me!"

The Masked Magician got to his feet. "Listen, bub, you don't scare me. I can guess how you do your tricks, and it's not as if The Flash won't have you back in jail by this time tomorrow."

Abra Kadabra smiled. "You really think that? Then I must prove you so very very wrong."

The masked man backed away as Abra Kadabra's hand reached into his jacket pocket, but then the villain pulled out something that the masked man recognized instantly.

"Pick a card, any card," said Abra, fanning out the deck.

The Masked Magician decided to humor him. He took a card and looked at it. "The Flash will still catch you," he said, as he returned it to the pack.

"On the contrary, he is a costumed buffoon. What if I make him my assistant for this trick? Then would you realize my power? Then would you be afraid of me?"

The masked man avoided answering directly, trying not to show any sign of the fear he was now feeling, as a cold tingle went up and down his spine. "What do you want? My money?"

"No, you still mistake me for a common criminal. I don't want your ill-gotten gains. I just want you to see the error of your ways, repent, stop sucking the magic out of magic."

"And if I don't?"

"You really don't want to annoy me, that never ends well. There was an English writer, who researched all the world's mystics, interviewed us extensively; he was going to put together the definitive encyclopedia."

"The books of magic?" said the Masked Magician. "By that guy with the crazy hair."

"I gave him that hair," said the sixty-fourth-century sorceror, with a sneer, as he pulled a nine of hearts out of thin air. "Is this your card?"

It wasn't his card. The Masked Magician was going to shake his head but now he found he couldn't.

"No, I know that's not the one," Abra said, flicking the card away, as the mask hid the ever-growing panic on the other magician's face.

"I can't move," he finally said.

"Don't worry, just part of the trick," Abra reassured him. "Now you won't be needing this," he added, as he peeled away the magician's mask. "I so hate men in masks."

The unmasked magician just stayed standing there, motionless, apart from the beads of sweat rolling down his brow. "So what did that writer do wrong?" he asked nervously. "Did he misquote you or something."

"He did the worse thing imaginable!" Abra snarled, pushing his face against the inert magician's. "He didn't arrange his encyclopedia entries alphabetically, but rather by the birth date of the magicians. I should have been first! First! Instead I ended up so far back in those books, I almost got lost in the index. Zatara must have been laughing in his grave."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said the magician, deciding that his best tactic might be to make a new friend of his new enemy.

Abra sat down on the chair vacated by the magician, regaining his composure. "That's okay, after my follicle persuasion, he agreed to put it all in alphabetical order for the new updated-and-expanded edition he's releasing later this year."

"Anyone else annoy you?" asked the worried magician.

Abra started to reply, but then found something stuck in his mouth. "Mm mmmm mmmm mmmm?"

"Pardon?"

Abra puts his fingers into his mouth, pulled out an object and carefully unfolded it. "I said, is this your card?"

It wasn't.

Abra tossed the card aside. "There was the Steve Miller Band, wrote a song about me without my permission."

"What did you do to them?"

"Didn't need to do anything? The Joker beat me to it. How about this one?" he said, pulling a card from behind the magician's head. "Is this your card?"

"You know it isn't."

"It isn't? Well, guess that trick didn't work. Guess I better get going. Something tells me The Flash will be here soon."

"But what about me?"

"You'll do what I said. Give up the mask. Nothing wrong with being a proper magician, keeping the audience guessing how you do your tricks."

"And if I don't give up being the Masked Magician, what will you do then? Turn me into a puppet and make me give up?"

"Of course not, why waste my signature trick on you when I can just as easily kill you. Anyway, time to disappear. Sure you'll make the right decision, my boy." And with that, he leapt into the mirror and was gone.

"Think that impresses me?" yelled the magician. "Probably just getting help from your friend, the Mirror Master." He tried to move, but found he still couldn't. "Wait! You can't just leave me like this!"

But there was no answer, and then the door was flung open and a heroic figure sped in.

"Flash!" yelled the magician.

"I got a message that Abra Kadabra had been seen here. Hope I'm not too late."

"You just missed him, he's left me here paralysed..."

The Flash looked at him. "I think I see the problem," he said, looking behind the unmasked Masked Magician. "Something sticking out of your back, probably intercepting your spinal column, disrupting the signals from your brain to your body."

"So, I'll need surgery?" replied the magician, fear in his voice.

"Don't worry," The Flash reassured him, "I should be able to vibrate it out."

"Thanks, Flash," said the magician as the Scarlet Speedster went to work. Finally the magician looked around, grateful that his body was working again. He realized that he'd been stupid to let that incompetent clown Abra Kadabra scare him. Abra's trick hadn't even worked and he could never have gotten The Flash to assist him.

The Flash was looking down at whatever he'd pulled from the masked magician's back, a puzzled look on his face. Finally he showed the magician what he'd found:

"Is this your card?"

* * *

It was the next day and Abra Kadabra wasn't happy.

He was standing in his hideout, taking a ball of screwed-up paper out of his hands, and opening it up to reveal the restored newspaper that he'd torn up earlier that day.

The main showbiz story in it told of how TV's Masked Magician had quit and been instantly offered his own residency in Vegas. In the accompanying photo, a familiar face with crazy hair was waiting to interview magic's newest sensation. That in itself didn't bother Abra, but rather the fact that the magician was now proudly using his unusual family surname, going by the appellation Aardvark the Magnificent.

That meant Abra would now be second in the encyclopedia! Second! And as far as he was concerned, that might as well be last. Why could he never ever be first at anything? Every magician in history had come along before him. Even against The Flash, he could never ever claim first place.

As he tore up the newspaper yet another time, a familiar Steve Miller Band song came on the radio.

Abra screamed. Some days he wished he could just disappear, and then he did so, as a red-and-yellow blur swept into his hideout and reached out and grabbed him.

_**The End**_


	2. Acrata

_**Mexican Graffiti**_

It was a hot day in Mexico City, and Andrea Rojas was woken up by the loud purring of her black cat, Zapata.

She pushed back her duvet to discover she was still wearing her black-and-green costume; she must have teleported straight into bed the night before. Looking over at the nearest bedpost, she saw her Acrata mask's white eyes staring back at her. She also noticed Zapata's paws were bright red - looked like that spray can she'd been using to do her graffiti was leaking. Maybe she should just give up on leaving messages behind after apprehending villains, they were becoming ever more elaborate and were now eating into her sleeping hours; she wondered if anybody even read them anyway.

She stretched in her bed, her muscles still aching from her nightly patrol. That's the way it sometimes was fighting organized crime, most nights the crime was actually highly disorganized, with low-life thugs with crowbars or machetes no match against her skill with martial arts, but every so often the bad guys would be using mystical items or maybe the latest villainous gadgets, like those thugs from last night with their enchanted exo-skeletons.

Ignoring the complaints of her bruised body, she crawled out of bed, changed into something less heroic, and fed her cat and then herself some breakfast. Once her nutritional requirements were taken care of, she cranked The Ramones up to annoy-the-neighbors volume and started her strenuous high-intensity morning workout.

It was sure tough being a superheroine. And this was supposed to be Sunday, a day of rest, but not for her. She looked up at the clock, it was almost noon. She had to be at the art gallery, meeting her father, for some exhibit by that American photojournalist, Jimmy Olsen, famous for his Superman photographs. She wanted to go back to bed, but she figured she had to show solidarity with her fellow redhead, plus she didn't want to let down her father.

* * *

She travelled on the STC Metro - she wished she could teleport instead, but that would have felt like an abuse of her powers - and arrived at the art gallery ten minutes late to meet her father, though that was early by her standards.

"So, Papito, is it all going to be photos of Superhombre?" she asked.

"On the contrary," replied her father. "It appears Mr. Olsen spent his vacation here in Mexico City."

"Great, holiday snaps. As if I haven't seen enough of the local color."

"You won't have seen this," her father reassured her. "Guess what? The exhibit's called Acrata!"

Andrea felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. At first, she thought he'd asked "Guess what the exhibit's called, Acrata?", but then she realized the inflection was wrong. "Acrata?" she finally managed to echo, pretending it was a name she'd never encountered, rather than one she'd adopted.

"You know, that super-heroine, one of _Los Grandes Nombres_."

She looked at him in confusion. An exhibit about her? Don't say this Olsen guy had been stalking her.

And then she walked in and saw that he hadn't been following her, just her aftermath, as she saw photo after photo of the graffiti she'd left behind, her work all gathered together. In the background, she heard music by a local rock band who'd named themselves after her.

Her mouth was agape. Her collections of quotations, her critiques of authority, had now been given a wider audience, but rather than being anti-authority, it seemed that it had now been absorbed into the mainstream. She didn't know whether to be happy or sad. Ah, who was she fooling? "Cool," she finally said, a big smile on her face.

"You're just impressed by the colors," said her academic father. "Let me explain the meaning behind them, you could learn something from this Acrata woman."

Andrea nodded. "Please tell me, father. I'd be fascinated."

And so her father took her on a guided tour of her works, and she was pleased that, on the whole, he understood the meaning behind them, although the fact that he made so much of "Viva Zapata" amused her greatly; she'd just done that one out of desperation because it had been her cat's birthday that day.

She smiled as she saw so much of her work gathered into one place, and the message it gave out. It had all been worthwhile after all.

"This is a terrific exhibit, so thought-provoking," said her father.

Andrea felt full of pride.

"And there's the person responsible," he added, making a beeline towards the redheaded Daily Planet photojournalist.

Andrea Rojas rolled her eyes; sometimes she wished she could share her secret with her father. Then her mind completely forgot about her wishes, as she heard a commotion outside, punctuated by the firing of assault rifles.

Andrea Rojas slipped into the shadows and was gone, only for Acrata to appear from another shadow across the room, as a squad of techno-terrorists came pouring into the room. It looked like organized crime had heard about Acrata's big day, and decided to ruin it. So far, she'd only heard them fire their rifles into the air, nobody had been shot yet, and she intended for it to stay that way.

She looked at the photo of her graffiti behind the terrorists; it contained a quote from Alan Moore: "Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof." She smiled as she once more disappeared into the shadows.

As her father looked on in horror and the photographer just fiddled with his wristwatch, Acrata took advantage of the terrorist's shadows, porting in and out of them, cutting down their owners with her swift efficient blows. She loved it when she was in full flow, showing off her fighting prowess.

Within seconds, the villains were out cold. Time for her to deliver her trademark quotation, the situation demanded it. She looked at the Daily Planet photographer, though he seemed to be looking in the distance, through the window behind her, a forced smile on his face. She turned but saw nothing there, just some disturbed-looking pigeons. She turned back to him, his attention now fully on her. "In the words of the reporter Lois Lane," she began, "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive," she ran towards a shadow in the corner, "able to leap-" And then she was gone.

As the museum's security staff rushed in, Andrea Rojas stepped out of the shadows. Suddenly she found her father Bernard rushing over and hugging her.

"Where were you?" he asked her. "I was so worried about you."

"The restroom," she lied.

"There was a group of terrorists," he told her, "and Acrata defeated them."

Andrea feigned a frown. "Sounds like some cheap publicity stunt."

Bernard shook his head in despair. "A shame she didn't leave any graffiti."

"Seems like there's quite enough here already," she said, looking around at the walls. "Anyway, I better be off, need to get some rest, got a busy night planned."

Bernard raised an eyebrow. "Anything or anyone I should know about?"

"Nothing for you to worry about, Papito," she reassured him. "Just painting the town red."

_**The End**_


	3. Agamemno

_**The Best Laid Plans**_

Like Agamemno's name, it started with _a game_.

He came up with a crazy plan to rule the universe, swapping the Injustice Gang's minds with that of the Justice League, and sending them to collect three weapons with which he could rule the universe. Of course that plan failed, just like he knew it would.

That was just a game, a means to an end, and now his plan had reached fruition, he was trapped inside the power battery, just where he wanted to be.

It would take him a while, maybe eons, but he'd used his ability for shaping inanimate matter, create a body for himself out of the battery, wield its power. He could wait forever if need be, he was nothing if not patient.

That was when he detected that he was not alone within the power battery. Another being was there, another being as old as time. The creature known as Parallax.

He knew Parallax was sleeping, but he knew that one day the monster would awake. Agamemno had thought that waiting was the one thing he was good at, but now each second seemed to last forever as he spent each moment imagining what would happen on that inevitable day.

Like Agamemno's name, it ended with a "No!"

_**The End**_


	4. Agent Liberty

_**Taking Liberties**_

Benjamin Lockwood was standing by the window in his New York hotel room, looking down on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. As a marching band passed by, playing the Liberty Bell March, his mind went back several months to when he'd left the Sons of Liberty behind, burning his costume. It had seemed like there was no turning back, he'd needed that costume like he needed a hole in the head. Since then, he'd been on his own, no longer Agent Liberty, but rather a free agent. Still, he missed those days.

Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the TV in the corner of the room; breaking news was coming in about some guerrillas who'd taken over the Statue of Liberty. He wanted to don his costume and head straight on over there, but he resisted; there were metahumans who could handle it. This wasn't the first time he'd been tempted to return to being Agent Liberty; he wanted to return to it every day, his life seemed empty without it. Being an ex-superhero was a lot like being an alcoholic, he just had to take it a day at a time.

Suddenly, a big Superman balloon floated past his window, and he realized that rather than try to forget those days in Metropolis, he should learn from them, forget about the corruption and aspire to be a real hero. He just couldn't turn his back on crime.

He looked at the TV and the longshot of Liberty Island, and rushed for the door. Superman was only here in balloon form, but there was another hero here today - one who could also fly and whom bullets would bounce off.

This was a job for Agent Liberty.

* * *

Fortunately, he had some spare costumes scattered around the country, stashed away in some of the many hiding places he'd learned about while working with the CIA. One such costume was behind a secret panel in a nearby abandoned subway tunnel (a favorite of the CIA; they hid everything there from futuristic weapons to ancient wizards if the stories were to be believed). Along with his white-and-yellow battle suit was an array of weaponry. He donned the suit, grabbed his favorite pistol and some time-activated grenades, and then ran out of the tunnel, activating his jet pack, and soared up, up and away.

It was good to be flying again, the wind rushing past his face. He flew over the parade, zigzagging around the balloons, the people down below pointing at him, but though he waved at them, he wasn't interested in adulation; he had a lady to take care of.

He zoomed over the New York buildings and activated his force field as he reached the bay, drawing closer to the statue. Suddenly, a muscular soldier perched on top of her crown started firing at him with his M16A2 rifle, the bullets flashing in front of him as they went bouncing off his force field. That didn't slow him down, he just carried on and ploughed into the soldier, fists first, knocking him off his feet and towards the edge of the statue's head. However, as the soldier fell over the side, he somehow managed to grab hold of the edge, clinging on tightly with one arm.

Agent Liberty dropped his force field and landed. He looked at the soldier's gloved hand and its precarious grip, but was then surprised to see the soldier swing effortlessly back up onto the statue and then run at him. He saw the soldier's face and gasped, just as a fist smashed into him, knocking him down onto the statue's green copper surface.

As he lay there, thinking about what he'd just seen, Agent Liberty suddenly realized he'd misheard the TV over the sound of the Liberty Bell March.

"Gorillas!" he said, as a giant foot came down on his head.

* * *

Agent Liberty was thankful for the armor built into his headwear; otherwise his skull would have no doubt been crushed by the simian soldier, who now had his hairy hand wrapped tightly around Agent Liberty's throat, crushing his windpipe while lifting him high in the air, ready to fling him down into the Hudson.

Normally he would have had no compunction about killing an enemy there and then, but he knew from the M.O. that this must be the work of Gorilla Grodd, and that this henchman was merely mind-controlled, on a mission from Grodd, so instead he activated his jet pack, sending them both into the air, the gorilla hanging onto his throat, dangling below him.

Agent Liberty kicked the gorilla, hoping to send him falling into the water below, but the ape refused to budge. With his air running out, his face turning red beneath his mask, the hero lifted his gun and pointed it straight at the gorilla's face, hoping Grodd would have the decency to let the gorilla relax his grip and plummet into the water below rather than face certain death. The gorilla's grip just tightened; he was just a pawn to Grodd, a pawn to be sacrificed.

Agent Liberty pulled the trigger, and saw the hurt, confused look on the ape's face just before the bullet hit.

He'd make Grodd pay for this.

* * *

Ten minutes had passed since he'd had to kill that first ape. Since then he'd infiltrated the statue's crown and had to silence five more. It was then that he heard Grodd's telepathic command in his head, so loud that he thought Grodd was next to him.

_Bring me Agent Liberty!_

Grodd must have wanted him to know that he was after him. Try to scare him into making a mistake, but he was used to intense situations, he relished them. It was then that he had his idea, a way to end the killing, a way to get to Grodd quickly. If Grodd wanted him that badly, then Grodd would have him.

It didn't take him long to find the next set of apes, situated on the stairs leading down from the crown.

"The name's Agent Liberty," he said nonchalantly, as their bullets bounced off his force field. "You can call me AL."

The apes stopped shooting and looked at him blankly.

"Grodd wants me, so I'm surrendering."

The apes smiled as he put down his force field, and then they attacked with all their wild fury. Agent Liberty smiled, he was hoping this would happen; it was just part of his plan. He was used to combat, so he fought against them, took their punishment, and finally, when he could take no more, played dead. Of course, Grodd might know of his pretense, he was a telepath after all, but that was a chance he'd have to take.

He felt one of the gorillas pick him up and then he was being carried down the stairs. At the bottom, the two gorillas took him by his arms and hauled him, his feet dragging along the floor, to their leader.

Agent Liberty was glad his mask hid his eyes as he looked at Grodd, standing in front of a large machine, with technology more advanced than he'd ever seen. It had a tripod as its base, with a gleaming obelisk mounted on top. Agent Liberty didn't know what it was for, but he knew it couldn't be good.

"So, you've brought me Liberty," said Grodd, stepping away from the machine.

"They've brought you death!" said Agent Liberty, springing back to life, shrugging off the gorillas, and pulling out his gun. He raised it, and aimed it at Grodd, only to find his finger couldn't pull the trigger.

"How melodramatic you humans are," said Grodd. "And how easily controlled."

Sweat gathered under Agent Liberty's mask as he struggled to pull the trigger. "So, are you going to make me your slave now?"

"Why would I do that?" asked Grodd. "If I thought you had any worth, I'd have read your mind, taken you over, but you're just a human, not even a metahuman. Soon your kind will be relics." He turned his attention back to the large machine.

"You plan to destroy the whole human race?"

"No, I plan to upgrade them, to evolve them, to alter the morphogenic field so that they will become apes."

"You're crazy."

"And after that we'll destroy this statue. I'm sure the cinematic allusion isn't wasted on you."

"You damn dirty ape," said Agent Liberty, dropping his gun, as Grodd's mind control brought him to his knees.

"Kneel before almighty Grodd."

Agent Liberty watched in horror as Grodd flicked a switch, and the machine sprang into life, making a humming sound as electricity crackled around it, and then he felt himself transforming.

He was losing his humanity, but some would say he'd lost that a long time ago, on many a battlefield. He'd done terrible things, and that was just today, and maybe sacrificing apes made him just as bad as Grodd, but sometimes the end justified the means.

While he couldn't shoot at Grodd, thankfully Grodd hadn't stopped him using his force field. As he felt his face mutating, he activated his force field, realizing it was time for the time-activated grenades that he'd secretly planted earlier to detonate. That was when the two gorilla soldiers on either side of him exploded.

That shocked Gorilla Grodd enough to drop his mind control on Agent Liberty.

"You can take my humanity," snarled Agent Liberty, rising to his feet, "but you'll never take my freedom." He charged toward Grodd.

Grodd bared his teeth as the heroic ape leapt on him. A violent struggle ensued, but Grodd was just too strong. Agent Liberty needed to stop that machine now, before things went too far, but it was behind him, while Grodd was on top of him, slamming his fists down hard.

He activated his jet pack, propelling both him and Grodd towards the machine, and while he went under the tripod base, his now-huge frame getting jammed in there, Grodd smashed straight into the obelisk, head-first, shattering it. As smoke began to rise from the machine above him, Agent Liberty turned the jet pack off, and activated his force field once more. If the machine was going to explode, he hoped the force field would contain the debris. He'd make sure at least one person called Liberty wouldn't be destroyed by the blast.

Then there was an explosion and everything went black.

* * *

Agent Liberty awoke to find himself lying on the ground, under the machine's tripod base. He was covered in debris, not to mention the lower half of Grodd, whose head was still trapped in the remains of the machine. The hero's body was aching all over, but at least he was still alive... and human once again. It was definitely a day to give thanks.

He pushed the debris away, got to his feet, and hobbled out of the Statue of Liberty, towards a silent crowd, the flash of photography and the waiting news crews on Liberty Island, their clothes torn due to their recent transformations.

"Tell us what happened?" asked a newspaper reporter he remembered from back in Metropolis, his bright blue underwear peeking out from beneath his tattered suit.

"It was a war, Clark, between Gorilla Grodd and humanity, and there were casualties."

"And are you okay?" asked the concerned reporter, looking at the battered Agent Liberty.

"Well, I think my left leg's broken, and a couple of ribs, and I suspect I'm going to collapse soon. Also, I'm having to lip-read what you say because that explosion seems to have made me temporarily deaf."

"Does this mean you'll be disappearing again?" Clark said.

"No, I'm back," said Agent Liberty, "for as long as America needs me." And with that, he activated his jet pack and soared into the sky, noticing that the crowds below were cheering him.

Despite all of his pain, he smiled. He'd sure missed being a superhero. He turned away from the Statue of Liberty and zoomed away, towards a brighter tomorrow.

_**The End**_


	5. Agony and Ecstasy

_**War Of The Words**_

_ANCIENT SNOT_

He looked at his Scrabble board on the table. He'd carefully laid out the tiles to spell her name, ready for that day when they would finally meet. He hoped it would be soon.

His name was Dave, he was a demon, and he loved his new life. There was no way in heck he was ever going back to Hell. Nope, he was happy here in Vegas, that was more than enough heat for him.

Most of the time he stayed at home, well, a victim's home. Hey, he was a demon, he had to make sacrifices. Not that he wasn't cultured; he had a love of words, as did many demons - some of whom even felt compelled to rhyme. Indeed, most of his friends were demons, who he'd met online through the many satanic social networking sites (where the only trolls you had to deal with were real ones). Dave never consorted with humans (apart from at feeding time), since there was always the unlikely danger of being beaten by them three times, and then Agony and Ecstasy would appear, Hell's enforcers, to drag him back down under to the Stygian depths. That was the rule, and Dave wasn't about to break it.

His computer pinged, and he saw his new demonic girlfriend AncientSnot was online. He'd never actually met her; he just hoped she was half as sexy as her username suggested. She also liked words, and as usual, after a bit of playful conversation, they quickly got down to a game of Online Scrabble. She was a formidable opponent, partly due to her gift for curse words, partly for her ability to use all of her letters at once. Sometimes he suspected her of cheating, which made her all the more endearing.

Finally, after her usual barrage of four-letter and seven-letter words, the match came to an end, and he looked at the score on the screen.

"That's three times you've been beaten by a human," said a voice from behind him, as barbed wire tore into his flesh.

"Got to take you back," said another voice, as he was yanked out of his chair, knocking the Scrabble tiles over the floor. "Just doing our job."

He looked up at the white naked pair. "No, this has got to be some kind of mistake."

"It certainly has been... but not ours," said Agony as they pulled him away, leaving the room abandoned. If someone had still been there, they might have noticed that the fallen Scrabble tiles now spelled out _CONSTANTINE_.

_**The End**_


End file.
